Please meet: Jimmy Carter

While many may want to for one reason or another, Jimmy Carter is probably the only person actually allowed to bring a sword to Tybee Island City Council meetings.

"Color guard, post colors!" he commands every other week as the Tybee Island Memorial Color Guard marches in with the American flag. The former lance corporal holds his Marine Corps sword tight against his shoulder.

Local-Governments typically don't have such formal displays of the flag. On most meeting nights, the mayor or chairman will simply turn to the flag and lead the Pledge of Allegiance.

Not on Tybee. For the last year, Carter, 61, has been commanding the color guard at city council.

"We did it the first time and, believe it or not, we got a standing ovation," he said.

Now his five-member color guard performs all around Tybee and Savannah.

"We wanted to do the colors at City Hall," the former Marine said. "We didn't know it would go ballistic."

Carter is one on a long list of colorful characters on Tybee Island. He and his wife, Candy, also a member of the guard, live in a tiny house on a tidal creek. Their place, which will soon be dwarfed by condominium buildings on all sides, is decorated with all manner of patriotic and flag-themed fare.

Carter grew up on Tybee, but when he joined the Marines he was sent to Vietnam. He served from 1960 to 1967.

"He's been out for f------ 30 years and he still thinks he's a Marine," said color guard member Danny Hitchings, who recently left the Marines after two tours in Iraq.

"I guess I'm the same. Once a Marine always a Marine."

In Carter's mind, there was no other life. After six years in the corps he was planning to re-enlist, which probably would have meant another tour in Vietnam. But his mother was adamantly opposed to the idea.

"She said, 'If you re-enlist in the Marines, never ever come back to this house again. As far as we are concerned, you don't exist,'" Carter said. He decided to side with his mom, he said.

He has no regrets because the Marine Corps has a saying: God, mother, Corps, country.

He returned to the states and worked as a lineman with the Jacksonville Electric Authority until he retired. Two days later, he moved into what is now his home in Tybee.

He's got a shelter behind his house where he builds lighthouse models and other art.

When he retired, he joined several veterans organizations and participated in another color guard. But that group fell apart. Then, the owner of the Tybee Breeze, Paul DeVivo, offered to pay for uniforms for a new color guard, Carter said.

"I said we now need to let people know who we are," he recalled. "How are we going to do that? I said, City Hall."

Carter and the color guard, which also includes members Kevin Michael and Brian Counihan, march in every parade on Tybee.

They recently performed at the kick-off ceremony for the United Way of the Coastal Empire's fundraising campaign.

He'll post the colors for anyone, anywhere, as long as the color guard is available.

"The color guard, for me, a lot of people have kind of lost the meaning of what that flag has been through and what it means to this country and what the people fighting for it mean," he said.

"I've seen it at City Hall; it really instills respect for that flag by the people. I think it keeps that patriotic spirit going."